Sunday the 21st,
Starbucks Versova,
The week gone by was interesting, to say the least.
Health was all over the place and this is when I am trying to be more conscious of what I eat and how I eat.
Work was ok – no large complaints but hectic for sure. On other things, I wasn’t as consistent as I would have liked to be.
Also, this review will be a short one compared to others.
Like I said, I am not 100%. I had the choice of skipping it or doing a half-hearted shoddy job.
I chose later. I am trying to be consistent even if quality goes down the drain. Plus this (my consistency) has been my Achilles Heel and thus I want to not stop with it.
So with that, here we go.
Wait. The song of the week. This.
Chalo, let’s go…
💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past week
PS: As always, these are not in any order. And this week, please expect these to be a tad less than previous ones.
A/ How people use ChatGPT
Open AI released this report that talks about how people use Chat GPT. I am sure you have seen it. But if you live under the rock and you havent, here’s a chart.
These are very interesting tidbits. I would love to get even more granular data on this to know more. I love how large companies that mine data are able to predict human behaviour so well!
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B/ ChatGPT as a therapist.
I found this prompt and I think I will use this to get chatgpt to be my therapist.
“ask me 10 – 12 questions to identify my limiting beliefs and what is holding me back.
Ask the questions one by one and ensure you get to the root cause and not just surface level answers, provide insights and rationale on aspects of myself I am not currently aware of.
After the 10 questions, use advanced Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) to wire my brain to push past these limiting beliefs.”
WARNING: PLEASE try at your own risk
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C/ Why do you do hard things? Who do you do hard things for?
First, read this post. And here I am, quoting some words from it…
I thought I fought for a cause but I realize I fought because he fought. Because one afternoon he let me witness his humanity.
It has been a long time since that afternoon but that hour changed me permanently. You do hard things because of the people who you do it with and they do it with you because you do it with them. I know to let people around me see the cracks. I remember that I need to witness an d be witnessed.
In my life I’ve wanted people to succeed and I have worked for that. I’ve worked with them at my own cost and at the cost of building opportunities. I dont take names normally but there are some people who’s ambition and dreams are unbounded and I want to be shoulder that enables them to do more! Aastha, Anubhab, Pritam. Shikha and Prakruti in the past. AK and C lately. The ones who put their faith in me. The ones that allowed me to steer them. I failed in most of those. But I did try.
I know when (not if) most of these folks reach the altar, they probably wouldn’t remember me. And that’s ok. I dont seek to be the person who gets to ring the bell on your IPO but I want to be around in the trenches when you need me. I want to be with the underdog. I want to be the person who has the honor to sit in the mud with you when the chips are down.
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D/ Rocky
Saw this. And I want to run. Lol!
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E/ Management Lessons from Mahabharata
While talking to Riya the other day, an idea popped into my head. What if I could divide Mahabharata in smaller chunks and created some lessons for young people. If I were to offer this as a cohort, how many of you would want to take this up?
PLEASE do let me know!
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F/ SG Patrons (#sgPatrons)
I mentioned a few weeks ago, I now have three patrons.
I need 997 more.
Need to work for those.
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G/ Aint No Sunshine on Jazz
I said last week that I am listening to a lot of Jazz lately. Here’s a cover of one of my favorite songs of all time. Here’s another cover (this one takes a bit to start). Oh man, I love listening to various versions of tracks that I love!
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H/ H1B row and Apple in China
In the last few days the world for Indians in the US seems to have turned upside down. There are new regulations on H1B Visa. While I am not as well read (reminds me of this from Calvin and Hobbs), I can understand the pain and anxiety in the minds of people.
Also, I am reading Apple in China.
And I am thinking and reading about global business and all that.
All three things are very very very unsettling to me as a person. On one side, I want to live as borderless, free life. And on the other, I am contained in India. And then there are stories of countries and economies closing their doors. And then there’s this thing where I know am growing old. And fast. And to a point that I dont know how long do I have! To a point that I dont even want to get on to a plane – why give fate even a fleeting chance?
Ok, I dont know where am going with this. The point is, kaafi khichdi hai. Lol!
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Ok, this is it.
📷 Some Photos from the week gone by
Here are some photos that I took and saved in the last week. Here.
Lemme know which one do you like the most. And do share some of your photos with me!
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🈺 LARGE objective from the week gone by?
I had two large things when I started this year. Book 2 and a yearly plan (that I’ve been writing for a long time. This year I couldn’t). And I just added health a few weeks ago.
Book 2 – There was no movement.
Nothing to report.
Yearly Plan – I dropped it long ago.
Now its time to think about the plan for the next year. Lol.
Health – Was not in the pink of health last week. So -1.
PS: I track my health updates here, in case.
☑️ So, what did I get done last week?
This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.
- Health
- Meru
- C4E
- Brand SG
- People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
- Book2
- Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)
Health. Was unwell. No one or nothing to blame on. Just life. Lol. I even tried to cook but that was a disaster. So, 0.
Meru. Apart from other things, did a session with some folks about how to write their biographies. Doing another one on the 5th Oct. Details here.
Still a 0, TBH.
C4E. No action from my side.
September looks tough. Let’s see.
C tells me that the pipeline looks ok but let’s see.
Brand SG. No action.
Nothing to be shared.
-1
People. No action on this.
I’d say 0.
Book 2. Nothing.
So, -1
Shauk. No action.
No time.
And I am not losing sleep over it. So a 0.
So the overall score is -2.
Has been -2 for some weeks now.
📊 The tracker from the last week
Here is the tracker for the week gone by.
What trends do you see?
I see…
- Terrible recovery. The last five days have been like less than 50 and one day it was 9!
- Food’s all over the place.
- Emotions are all over the place.
Lol, life’s all over the place ;P
What do you see?
🏃🏻♂️➡️ Health
I added Health as a key section some days ago. I am still discovering what to cover here. Let’s see how it goes.
I read somewhere that you need 4 things to live long – sleep, exercise, diet and community. I will track all four. And then some more variables that I feel are important to me. Let’s see what comes out. Also, I log a few things at these links – food log, my daily health log channel.
1/ Sleep
In one word, last week was FUCKED!
2/ Exercise
No action. Despite my 100% intentions.
3/ Diet
I track each thing I eat on my food log.
Was terrible.
I tried sprouts and boiled eggs and all that. But didn’t work out. I think I will give up on it and get catered meals. I will pay more than I can afford but I will not have to waste headspace.
4/ Community
No large movement on this. It’s as ok as it could be. Nothing great, nothing bad.
5/ REDACTED
This was being tracked till the last week. I have stopped this from this week onward.
6/ Movement
No action. Even the steps are down 🙁
7/ Meditation
No action.
Overall, the last week has been terrible. The first half was bad cos of work. The second half cos I ate something bad.
📖 Interesting Reads / Views from the last week
Since I was not working a lot, I had time to read a lot. And I started reading a book as well (Apple in China – see this). So, here are some links that I want to share.
1/ This LinkedIn post talks shows the income of Indians across tax groups (only the ones that file tax). The surprising part was the number of people making more than 10 lakhs is like 1 crore only (assuming 10 crore people file tax and 10% of those are in this category)! What does this mean for us?
2/ Interesting post about how the Aggarwals cant seem to find enough brides. More pertinent cos this is the community that I come from.
3/ This tweet implores you to find your Spartans. Like I said, I have 2. How many do you have? Oh, while on Spartans, please see this video to get the real meaning of what Spartans mean!
4/ I saw this tweet and I want to take the no-smart phone challenge. I will probably do this towards the end of the year. #sgtodo
5/ Read this tweet on swimming. Gold!
6/ Read this post about who would you like to be without an audience. Very very deep and inspiring and interesting. A conundrum that I have faced for a long long time now.
7/ This tweet by Kunal Shah is very interesting. I would love to get into some sin business. Any ideas?
8/ This long post on how twitter / X algo works. Do read. I am yet to implement this in my work but I plan to.
9/ Re-read this long post (from 2014) on why Bitcoin is doomed. Some of the reasons are no longer valid in 2025 but some are! Do read and lemme know what you think.
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I want to share more links but this week’s update is a truncated one. So may be next week?
🧠 Reminders from last week
This section captures things that I want to not forget. I add those to SG’s Office. I will copy paste these week on week and track updates.
I’ve been skipping this for a while now.
Lets see when I get back to this.
🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?
Sad.
Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… Tough, Routine, Routine, Busy, Grind, Blur, Stress, Numb, Blur, Fast, Uncool, Disappeared, Experience, Grind, Busy for Nothing, Regular, Getting back to action, Slack, Busyness, Action, Survive, Looking Up, Survival, Taste, Community, Respect, Money, People.
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Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.
Oh, and this too shall pass!
PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (missed), 23, 24 (missed), 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37
PPS: Please do point typos.
Grammarly is not working well and I don’t have energy to cut paste edit this in some other spell check thing.
PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.